Red Tawks

2021 – 2022

Talk

Making Love with the Land

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Joshua Whitehead
Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1)
English and International Indigenous Studies Departments, University of Calgary

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Panel

Joanne Barker's "Red Scare" Book Launch and Discussion

Book cover titled Red Scare: The State’s Indigenous Terrorist featuring black-and-white illustrations of butterflies against a light background, with the title in large black text and subtitle in orange text.

Hokulani Aikau (Kanaka Maoli), University of Victoria, Moderator
Joanne Barker (Lenape), San Francisco State University
Audra Simpson (Mohawk), Columbia University
Anne Spice (Tlingit), X University

Purchase the book

View the book discussion

Talk

Queering Indigenous Land-Based Education

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Dr. Alex Wilson
Opaskwayak Cree Nation
Professor and Academic Director of the Aboriginal Education Research Centre, University of Saskatchewan

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2020 – 2021

Talk

Decolonizing Methodologies

Head-and-shoulders portrait of a person wearing a light-colored blazer and dark top, standing with arms crossed in front of bookshelves, smiling at the camera.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Porou iwi)
Māori and Indigenous Studies, University of Waikato, New Zealand

Author of Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (1999).

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Discussion

Food Sovereignty: A Discussion in Honor of Jessica Mae Orozco

Smiling graduate wearing a cap and gown holds a diploma cover and a bouquet of flowers while standing with a young child at an outdoor commencement ceremony.

Cassandra Freeman (Spirit Lake Sioux), Co-Founder/Owner of Anatolian Farms in Southwest Colorado, Cultivating Organic Hemp and Vegetables (B.A. in AIS at SFSU, 2012).

Melissa K. Nelson (Anishinaabe/Métis [Turtle Mountain Chippewa]), Professor of Indigenous Sustainability, School of Sustainability, College of Global Futures, Arizona State University (AIS faculty 2002 – 2020). Contributor and editor, Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability (2018).

Watch the discussion on Food Sovereignty

Talk

Abolition and Settler Colonialism: On Corporate-State-Police Entanglement

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Shiri Pasternak
Research Director at Yellowhead Institute and Assistant Professor in Criminology at Ryerson University

Her book, Grounded Authority, is an in-depth critique of the federal land claims policy in Canada from the perspective of Algonquin law, and was published in 2017. She writes about resource extraction, Crown-First Nations fiscal relations and legal problems of colonialism.

Listen to the talk by Shiri Pasternak

Talk

This World is a Wound

Person holding a small portrait photograph in their hand against a tiled floor background.

Billy-Ray Belcourt is a writer and academic from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is an Assistant Professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia. A 2018 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, he earned his Ph.D. in English at the University of Alberta. He was also a 2016 Rhodes Scholar and holds an M.St. in Women's Studies from the University of Oxford and Wadham College. In the First Nations Youth category, Belcourt was awarded a 2019 Indspire Award, which is the highest honor the Indigenous community bestows on its own leaders.

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Special to Red Tawks: Mask-Making Video

Reflections in the Time of COVID

Handmade cloth face masks arranged on a table in a variety of colorful patterns and fabrics.

The video depicts the process of cutting, ironing, folding and sewing fabric to make two-ply 100% cotton masks for the community, in March 2020, when San Francisco State University went into remote modality.

Administrative Analyst Specialist, Gabriela Segovia-McGahan, has been making masks since the start of the quarantine caused by COVID-19.

Watch Reflections in the Time of COVID

2019 – 2020

Panel

The 50th from the Perspective of Alaska Native Studies: A Roundtable Discussion

Betty Parent (Deg Xit'an), Professor Emeritus of American Indian Studies, SFSU
Shari Huhndorf (Yup’ik), Professor, Native American Studies, UC Berkeley
Jessica Bissett Perea (Dena’ina), Assistant Professor, Native American Studies, UC Davis

View the discussion on The 50th from the Perspective of Alaska Native Studies

Panel

The 50th from the Perspective of this Place: A Workshop on Land Acknowledgment

Corrina Gould (Chochenyo Ohlone)
Kanyon Sayers-Roods (Coastanoan Ohlone/Chumash)
Gregg Castro (t'rowt'raahl Salinan/rumsien Ohlone)
Discussant: LaNada War Jack (Bannock Nation)
Joanne Barker (Lenape), Professor and Chair of American Indian Studies

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Keynote: The 50th from the Perspective of Alcatraz

Native Resistance: An Intergenerational Fight for Survival and Life

Speaker seated at a table addressing an audience, gesturing while speaking into a microphone.

LaNada War Jack (Bannock Nation)
Co-Organizer of the ’69 Occupation of Alcatraz

Watch the Keynote: The 50th from the Perspective of Alcatraz

Musical Performance

Resounding Witchi Tai To: 1969 – 2019

Musician performing onstage, singing while playing a stringed instrument and holding a wooden percussion instrument.

The John-Carlos Perea Quartet performs a musical commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the song "Witchi Tai To" by the Creek and Kaw jazz saxophonist Jim Pepper (1941 – 1992). Featuring Bryan Bowman (drum set), Karl Evangelista (guitar), Masaru Koga (saxophone) and Associate Professor of American Indian Studies John-Carlos Perea (bass, voice).

Panel